“The Commonwealth Budget will be handed down on 13 May and we will not engage in unhelpful speculation on the budget — we simply do not play the rule in, rule out game that the Labor Party is so fond of,” he said in a statement.

“Labor left this Government with a mess in health, having wasted billions of dollars. It was Labor who built big new bureaucracies in health, but failed patients. We are determined to strengthen and modernise our health system.”

State and federal health ministers meet in Brisbane on Friday and the proposed fee along with plans for a $6 charge to see a GP are set to be hotly debated.

Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg confirmed around a third of the state’s 1.5 million a year emergency department patients had problems more suited to a GP but ruled out charging them a fee.

“We remain committed to a free public hospital system and fixing the problem is about more than a copayment,” he told News Corp Australia.

“Our state is very committed to a free public hospital system, we were the first in the country to have it.”

Queensland hospitals had the fastest improving emergency department access in the country with 80 per cent of patients seen in under four hours and some in as little as 18 minutes, he said.

The state had become a victim of its own success with many patients now finding it easier to see a doctor in emergency than to get an appointment with a GP for which they might have to wait 18 hours, he said.

COMMENT BELOW: Would a fee deter people going to hospital with minor illnesses?

South Australia’s Health Minister Jack Snelling said his state won’t impose a charge on patients who use emergency departments because it undermines universal access to health care under Medicare.

“If they plan to introduce a GP tax at this Federal Budget it’s not something we’re going to co-operate with them on,” Mr Snelling told Adelaide radio.

“It really is about access to GPs ... particularly in our outer suburbs and in our rural areas, which drives the demand in our public hospitals ... introducing GP tax is not going to do anything to address that fundamental issue.”

Earlier this year the SA government estimated a $6 GP fee would triple the waiting times at hospital emergency departments and force an extra 360,000 people to the hospital system to get free care, costing the state budget $80 million.

A spokesman for Victoria’s Health Minister David Davis said at present the proposal for an emergency department charge was mere speculation.

“We’ve certainly had nothing formal put to us and we would have to assess it when that happens,” his spokesman said.

News Corp Australia reported yesterday the Commonwealth is considering changing the law to allow the states to charge people who arrive at public hospital casualty departments with conditions that could be treated by a GP.

More than two million patients with minor problems attend public hospital emergency departments each year, many because they can’t access after hours treatment at their general practice.

One estimate has put the cost of their treatment at $1 billion a year but University of Western Australia’s Professor David Mountain says this is an over-estimate.

Emergency department infrastructure and staff all have to be available even if only one patient an hour attend the unit and he says it could be cheaper to use these departments than pay for home visits or GP hotlines.

The Australian Medical Association yesterday rejected the idea of charging emergency department visitors.

“Forcing people to avoid seeing the doctor for minor ailments is a dangerous and expensive policy direction. Minor ailments become major ailments if not treated early,” AMA president Dr Steve Hambleton said.

“The GP co-payments idea could actually lead to increased costs to the health system, and should be ruled out immediately.”

Australian College Emergency Medicine president Dr Andrew Cross rejected the proposed hospital charge and said lack of beds on hospitals wards not GP patients were the reason emergency department were clogged.

“Any co-payments will act as a disincentive to patients seeking care and may result in poorer outcomes as patients may delay seeking medical care for illnesses that could have been prevented or better managed at an earlier stage,” Dr Cross said.

Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King said the Abbott Government did not tell anybody about these plans prior to the last election.

“Tony Abbott promised no new taxes and no cuts to health — he is breaking those promises again today with leaked reports of his new Hospital Tax,” she said.

“Parents shouldn’t be forced to choose between the health of their children and putting food on the table.”

Mr Barnes said a charge for emergency department visits would be necessary if the government imposed a $6 fee on GP visits otherwise patients seeking free care would flood the hospital system.

“If you have a copayment for GPs you need to have a matching or larger fee on emergency department services, he said.

Mr Barnes says the fees should be means tested and only apply to those who do not have a health care card.

“If you’ve got a health care card that should be grounds for exemption from the charge,” he said.

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